Young Salmon Born Knowing Migration Route — Without any prior migration experience, juvenile Chinook salmon can find their way to ancestral feeding grounds by using the Earth’s magnetic field and an inherited internal map, according to a new study.

Progressive Kristallnacht Coming? — I would call attention to the parallels of Nazi Germany to its war on its “one percent,” namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the “rich.” This is in the Wall Street Journal. Sometimes there simply are no words.

The Brittle Grip, Part 2 — Josh Marshall with some analysis of the Perkins piece. The extremely wealthy are objectively far wealthier, far more politically powerful and find a far more indulgent political class than at any time in almost a century – at least. And yet at the same time they palpably feel more isolated, abused and powerless than at any time over the same period and sense some genuine peril to the whole mix of privileges, power and wealth they hold. There is a disconnect there that is so massive and glaring that it demands some sociocultural explanation.

2013, An Extraordinary Year for Marriage Equality — And the rising tide of bigotry begins to recede. Remember when the anti-gay bigots used to brag about how they had never lost a vote on the subject, as evidence of the rightness of their position? Suddenly winning popular votes is a lot less important to them. The much vaunted intellectual consistency of conservative America on display once more.

This iPad App Wants to Be Your New Assistant — MindMeld analyzes your conversations and tries to offer helpful info from the Web. It’s a cool idea, but it doesn’t work as well as it needs to. I’m pretty much a technophile, but I don’t think I would want this much involvement from one of my devices.

The Intellectual Civil War within Evangelicalism: An Interview with Molly Worthen — Evangelicals sincerely try to please all the sources of authority in those three questions that I mentioned. They try to satisfy the standards of secular reason and spiritual experience and scripture and do right by the public square. I like this article a lot, but that bit, about Evangelicals, or at least those in the American Right, is very far off. Evangelicals have become the group most concerned with dismantling the public square and remaking into an extension of their churches. They are every bit as insidious and immoral enemies of freedom as the most wildly imagined Shariate bogeyman, and they do so with joy in their hearts and a patriotic smile on their faces. That sinister fruitiness on the part of people who work very hard at dismantling American freedoms and civil rights is part of why I can never, ever be a conservative. The fact that they cannot recognize this most basic characteristic in themselves, but in turn work very hard to project it onto liberals, progressives and atheists is an intellectually dishonest icing on the cake of Christianist willful ignorance. (Snurched from Slacktivist Fred Clark.)

Public’s Views on Human Evolution — Willful idiocy continues to burgeon on the American Right. Ah, the intellectual marvel that is American conservatism. Tribalism for the win, I guess, and the evidence-based world be damned.

[links] Link salad boogies back to Stumptown

Celebrated Apple design far beyond ‘shelf appeal’ — Apple is focused more on physical feel and user interaction with its new Retina iPad mini and the thinner, lighter iPad Air. The latter seems to Jeff Carlson to have achieved all that the company must have envisioned with its original iPad.

Creationists Once Again Threaten to Make a Mockery of Texas Science Education — The children of today are the voting public of tomorrow. If we don’t break this cycle of willful ignorance, it may never stop on its own. Duh. Where do you think the Republican voter base comes from? Intellectual honesty and clear-eyed analysis of one’s own self-interest is death to modern conservative politics. That’s why Republicans fight so hard to distort education and twist the media. Willful ignorance is the GOP’s only real asset among 99% of the electorate.

Clean Air Act was boon to Appalachian forests — Sulfur pollution shown to have slowed tree growth. Bullshit. Everybody knows Federal regulations are nothing but job-destroying Socialism. Ask any conservative, especially those who live in places like West, Texas.

[links] Link salad coughs the night away

What kills cancer patients — It’s not what you think. But yes, this. One reason I’ve lived so long with Stage IV metastatic colon cancer is that these things have been done properly to, by, and for me.

Detaining my partner: a failed attempt at intimidation — The detention of [Glenn Greenwald’s] partner, David Miranda, by UK authorities will have the opposite effect of the one intended. The UK government fights back against the Edward Snpwdem reporting. In an abusive and illegal manner completely consistent with the original charges. (danjite.)

Business groups aren’t too happy about Tea Party mania they helped unleash — National Journal’s Jill Lawrence has a good piece in which she interviews some of the top officials at these organizations, and finds they are shocked and dismayed by what they have wrought. You bought those idiot Republicans in office fair and square, guys. Welcome to the world we all have to live with them because of that empowerment of the Dunning-Kruger effect via Ayn Rand.

Heatwave grounds US flights — Several flights have been cancelled due to the record-breaking heatwave affecting parts of the US. It’s too hot in some places for the airplanes to fly. Weather is not climate, but the aggregate of weather is. Nothing to see here, citizens. Just move along and stay tuned to Rush Limbaugh.

Sorry Now? — What do the liberal and moderate lawyers who supported John Roberts’ nomination say today?

My Gay Mormon Dad — Another painful post from Feminist Mormon Housewives trying to reconcile the illogical diktats of faith with reason, morality and plain old common sense.

Milwaukee Priest Sex Abuse Records to Be Released — deal reached in federal bankruptcy court between the archdiocese and victims suing it for fraud called for the documents to be made public by July 1. Victims say the archdiocese transferred problem priests to new churches without warning parishioners and covered up priests’ crimes for decades. Proving once again that the Catholic Church’s favorite Bible verse is Matthew 19:14, “Suffer the little children.” They just forgot the rest of the verse.

Penn. Lawmaker Censored On House Floor From Speaking On Gay Rights — State Rep. Brian Sims’ (D) remarks during a part of the House session where representatives are allowed to speak openly were cut off almost immediately by a procedural maneuver. State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R) objected to the remarks on the grounds that Sims was speaking out “against God’s law.” See, if you’re a conservative, that whole First Amendment religion thing only applies to Christians. The right kind of Christians. And that whole separation of church and state thing is just a liberal lie. Are you proud of your Republican party?

Shame on a Paddy — More on the Magdalen Laundries of Ireland, and Catholic apologist Bill Donohue. In case after all the high level pedophilia coverups you still somehow thought the Catholic Church was a force for good in the world.